


Salt

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Apologies, Blow Jobs, Bruises, Dominance, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Established Relationship, Face Slapping, Hair-pulling, M/M, Masochism, Non-Consensual Haircuts, Sadism, Scratching, Showers, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-06 04:09:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4207359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When Squalo steps into the opulence of the room he’s too tense with frustration to pause and read the tone hanging heavy in the air." Squalo doesn't pay attention to Xanxus's mood and the misstep costs him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cut

Squalo isn’t paying attention when he comes into Xanxus’s room.

He should be. He knows better than to think that interactions with the other man are anything other than battlefields, as dangerous and deadly as any of the duels he’s participated in. But  _should_  isn’t  _is_ , as it so rarely is between the two of them, and when Squalo steps into the opulence of the room he’s too tense with frustration to pause and read the tone hanging heavy in the air.

“Another failure,” he grates, tearing the words to ribbons on his tongue. “The new recruits are no  _good_  anymore, even dealing with them is a waste of my time.”

Xanxus looks up at him without moving his body as Squalo draws nearer, his eyes fixed hot and glowing radiant with his ever-stoked anger. If Squalo weren’t who he is it might give him pause, if conflict was something he had ever feared. Instead it draws him in, reels the ground away under his strides until he’s too close, within the range of Xanxus’s whip-quick movements if the other decides to hit, or grab, or throw.

“If we end up doing all the work because they’re too incompetent then they’re  _useless_ ,” he says as he leans in, close enough that his hair starts to slide over his shoulder under its own weight.

Xanxus doesn’t look up. His hand just moves, swinging up off the arm of his chair and cracking hard across Squalo’s face. The force is enough to knock the other’s head sideways, the burst of impact with Xanxus’s ring enough to leave a numb welt against Squalo’s cheek. It’ll start to hurt, in a moment.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Squalo blurts, lifting his good hand to his face to press hard against the swelling bruise. “What the  _fuck_  was that for?”

“This is stupid,” Xanxus says, the words completely divorced from Squalo’s exclamation. A hand grabs at Squalo’s hair, makes a fist in it just at the base of his skull. Squalo knows this move, has felt it before, but there’s nothing he can do to avoid the impact; experience only gives him enough warning to wrench his head sideways, to take the impact with the table as Xanxus slams him forward against his cheek instead of the bridge of his nose. He doesn’t shout, this time; the burst of pain is too much, knocks him breathless and stunned wide-eyed for a moment, and then Xanxus is standing, shoving forward so his weight is holding Squalo down to the table.

“Fucking scum,” he’s saying, and that’s nothing unusual, even if Squalo isn’t sure what he’s done this time to deserve the epithet. His vision is clearing, coming back into focus through the fall of the loose strands over his face; he can’t look up to see Xanxus’s face, not with his head pinned down as it is, but he can see the other’s free hand, his fingers curling in to press against the middle of his palm. “You’re disgusting.”

Squalo shifts, tries to break free even though he knows it’s futile. The movement gets him another pull at his hair, a sharp drag backwards that twists his neck unpleasantly, and Xanxus is leaning in closer, his shadow falling over Squalo’s features as he continues speaking in the low rumble of irritation.

“Wasn’t enough to offer your  _devotion_ ,” he’s saying, now, the dip of shadow on the last word twisting it into an insult on his tongue. “You had to make a  _promise_.” He twists his hand, shaking hard enough that Squalo skids over the table. The friction drags against his rising bruise, makes him bark a noise of protest, but he doesn’t reach up to try to wrench Xanxus’s hand free. He knows better than to try that.

“And  _this_ ,” Xanxus continues, fingers shoving up against Squalo’s scalp with enough force to draw blood. “Where I have to  _see_  it every damn day, this fucking  _mess_  of hair.” His free hand is tightening, Squalo can see the tendons drawing taut across his knuckles.

“And you  _knew_ ,” he goes on, and there’s friction on his words, fury tearing to the surface of his voice. Something goes cold along Squalo’s spine, a chill that might be the fright he has forgotten how to feel, and it’s then that he blinks and realizes Xanxus’s hand is getting darker, his skin falling into the stripes and jagged edges of old scars. “You  _knew_  it was an impossible promise,  _all this time_.” It’s a threat, now, Squalo can hear it like blood on Xanxus’s tongue, and the scars are unwinding up along his wrist, disappearing under the weight of the other’s sleeve, and Squalo can’t breathe against the angle of his neck.

“And you  _still_  let it grow,” Xanxus finishes, the sound of the words a coffin lid slamming shut. Squalo is staring at the dark spreading over the other’s skin, the shape of his anger written in unfamiliar text across his body, and he can’t find words for the years of waiting, when the only thing he had to cling to was the viciously stubborn hope that grew in time with the weight of his hair.

“I hate to look at you,” Xanxus says over him, turning his hand to shove Squalo’s face down against the table, and the sight is gone, scars and skin alike out of sight. All Squalo can see is the dark wood grain of the table, the smooth-polished surface cold and unyielding against his face; he reaches out to grab at the edge, a bid for balance Xanxus isn’t concerned with maintaining.

He doesn’t speak. His heart is pounding in his chest, wild with far more adrenaline than mere combat can ever awaken in him, now, cold and heat chasing each other under his skin in waves like fire following rain. He doesn’t know what Xanxus will do, lacks the experience to give context to the other’s anger, and when he hears the slick smooth sound of a blade coming free of a sheath, he has a moment of certainty that he’s going to die like this, that Xanxus is going to cut his throat and be done with him. The thought is gone as quickly as it came, the hypothesis too insane to contemplate, but it’s cold winning out, now, all Squalo’s skin flashing to ice in expectation of a razor-edge blow at his shoulder, or fingers, or the unprotected line of his waist.

It’s not relief he feels when there’s the sound of a blade hitting friction without any of the pain he was expecting. Confusion comes first, a complete loss of understanding hanging still and silent in his mind; then there’s motion, an unfamiliar lightness spreading out over his scalp, and Squalo can feel his stomach drop at the same moment that he realizes what Xanxus is doing.

“ _Stop_ ,” he says, his voice cracking high as it hasn’t done in years. “Stop,  _stop_.”

“It’s better like this,” Xanxus laughs. He’s dragging at a handful of Squalo’s hair, pulling the strands taut; Squalo can hear the faint  _shick_  of the knife slicing through the locks, the cut ends falling to land with uncanny lightness against his head. “Makes more sense, don’t you think?” Another handful, another slice through the weight of hair; Squalo’s fingers are curling white-knuckled at the edge of the table, desperation far too late to change the outcome turning him hot and shaky. “If it’s supposed to be a sign of your promise to make me Tenth.” The hand shoves at Squalo’s head, pushes him face sideways against the table, and Squalo goes, too shocked with horror to fight back as Xanxus catches the last handful of his hair and wrenches it into a knot around his fingers. Squalo can see the loose strands, the length of it hanging heavy even after tangling against Xanxus’s wrist.

“It’s just trash,” Xanxus says, and the knife cuts. Squalo can see the movement in the broken hair, the way it falls feather-light as Xanxus shakes his hand to drop the strands to the floor. It’s tangled around him, catching at his shoulders and weighting familiar, still, over the back of his coat, but his head is too light, the pale strands chopped shorter than they have been since he was young, since before Xanxus, since before  _everything_. There’s no sense of sadness, no crippling weight of loss; there’s just shock, the casual destruction of the symbol Squalo has carried for years too much to even believe.

Xanxus’s hand pushes across Squalo’s head, ruffling the fresh-cut strands under his fingertips. It feels strange, to have his touch so near to the skin; Squalo shudders at the friction of it, the  _closeness_  of the contact, as the fingers form into a fist on what’s left and drag him sideways across the table.

“Still enough to hold onto,” Xanxus observes. There’s the rustle of fabric, the sound of the other man falling back into his chair, but Squalo doesn’t turn his head to watch; he’s just dropping to the floor, landing hard at his knees when Xanxus pulls him sideways, and now his hand is coming up, involuntary response to the pain sparking out over his scalp from the other’s rough treatment. There’s another laugh, overloud and cracking through the air like a blow as Xanxus drags Squalo sideways, pulls him skidding over the floor until his face runs up hard against Xanxus’s knee.

“I guess I’ll let you keep this much,” he decides. Squalo’s head is ringing, his fingers scrabbling for some kind of purchase at Xanxus’s wrist; his scalp hurts, the loose ends of his hair are tickling against the back of his neck. When he glances sideways he can see the tangled mess of his hair against the edge of the table and lying in a pale pool on the floor.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he gasps, rendered incoherent with shock and pain and the abruptness of the loss he wasn’t prepared for. “ _Fuck_  you, god _damn_ it.”

“Shut up,” Xanxus says, casual as a smack. He’s leaning back in his chair, keeping Squalo where he is by the fist of what’s left of his hair; when Squalo blinks his vision back into focus he can see Xanxus working open the front of his dark jeans, the dark of old injury still clinging to his skin in spite of the almost-amusement under his voice. It brings the heat back, sears through Squalo’s blood to burn off the cold, and he doesn’t look away as Xanxus pushes his zipper down and shoves the fabric away from his cock.

It’s no surprise that he’s hard. Xanxus is always the one with the heat, the fire that constantly smoulders in his veins as often turning to sex as to violence, and with the leading edge of his rage vented on Squalo’s hair this is nearly logical, for the two of them. Squalo doesn’t push away the sustained grip at his scalp; he just clings to Xanxus’s wrist, tries to relieve the worst of the pain as he’s dragged in, and even his repeated “ _Fuck_ ” is more out of habit than real resistance.

“Shut up,” Xanxus says as he braces the fingers of his free hand around the base of his cock. “Open your mouth.”

Squalo whines, the sound broken apart on the complications of desire and loss and anger and sorrow all at once, but he doesn’t try to put words to the feeling, and a single incoherent sound isn’t going to stop Xanxus. He opens his mouth.

Xanxus doesn’t give him time to take a breath. He moves immediately, forces Squalo’s head down by his fistful of the other’s short-cut hair, and Squalo only barely gets his mouth open wide enough to keep his teeth out of the way before Xanxus’s cock is shoving in against his tongue, hard and hot and bitter against his throat. He’s tightening his lips without thinking, dragging friction in his wake as Xanxus steers his movements, but that’s about all the action he can take; it’s Xanxus who is moving his head, reaching out to close his other hand at the back of Squalo’s neck now as he pulls him in closer to slide in hard over the other’s tongue. He’s coming in far, too deep and too fast and Squalo doesn’t have a chance to tip his head up into a better angle; there’s just the motion, a sharp thrust of action, and an impact against the back of his throat that shocks any compliance out of his head with a reflexive jolt and choking attempt at breath. Xanxus growls, anger lacing over his voice, draws back in a rush of friction, and Squalo sucks in air through his nose and against his abused throat. His hand drops from Xanxus’s wrist, comes out to clutch desperately against the other’s hip, and Xanxus comes in again, rocking forward towards him as fast as he’s dragging Squalo closer. Squalo’s more ready this time, has his chin tipped up farther, and this time the impact is glancing, a scrape and a slide and then the heat is sliding down his throat, filling his airway like he’s trying to inhale solid fire.

There’s nothing he can do about the rhythm Xanxus sets. He never can, that’s familiar enough; it’s only the pace that’s different, the rough forward strokes coming quicker than they usually do so he has to struggle for air. The hand is his hair is unshakeable, the thrust of Xanxus’s hips unavoidable; it would be terrifying if Squalo had any context for fear, any recollection of the emotion. Instead it’s just hot, a fire unwinding through him like all the bloodlust of a fight and the excitement of survival interlaced into one seething form, until even when his lungs start to burn he doesn’t identify it as want of oxygen as much as Xanxus’s flame given shape, marking him from the inside out far more effectively than his self-declared vow ever did.

Xanxus pulls back before he’s finished. Squalo is coughing as soon as his throat is clear, his body struggling for the cool of the air his mind isn’t sure it wants, and when Xanxus shoves him sideways his balance goes, sends him skidding to collide with the floor instead of catching himself like he could if he were less lightheaded. His mouth is full of salt and bitter, the taste of the sea spilling over his tongue and down his throat, until when he inhales it’s a surprise to have air instead of water answering the pull of his lungs.

“I like you better like this,” Xanxus says, a foot coming out to kick a bruise into Squalo’s hip. With his chest still aching for air Squalo can’t consider a rebuttal, just capitulates to the impact by rolling onto his stomach. There’s hair all over the floor, long white strands catching under his fingers when he reaches out to brace himself; he can see the clean cut edges, the angle showing the reckless slash of Xanxus’s knife through the strands.

There’s a sound behind him, a knee hitting the floor alongside his hip. “It’s like we’re back at the beginning,” Xanxus purrs over him, and it’s almost affectionate, or sounds so to Squalo. There are fingers grabbing at the back of his pants, dragging with force instead of care, and Squalo tips his hips up as far as he can to ease the slide. It’s still too-tight, with the front still fastened; the waistband drags sharp friction over his hips as Xanxus yanks it halfway down his thighs, the edge of his clothes catching painful against his cock as it goes, but Squalo doesn’t put anything more than a growling exhale to his protest. He feels warm, he feels  _hot_ , burning with an unfamiliar fever made out of his own abuse and Xanxus’s hate -- for him, for the Vongola, for the world at large -- and when he presses his forehead to the silky strands of cut hair on the floor he can feel his cock flushing hard against the rough friction of the floor.

Xanxus isn’t gentle. He never is, Squalo’s memories and sore throat can attest to that, and Squalo neither expects nor wants the careful touch of affection. Still, when the other shoves two spit-wet fingers into him he can’t help but groan, the sound tearing into pain over his throat even as his fingers and cock catch desperation against the floor.

“Scum,” Xanxus says, the vowel drawing long in his throat until it sounds like a name, until it sounds like an endearment. His fingers push deeper, forcing in as far as he can reach, and Squalo is arching involuntarily, his head tipping back and mouth working on a wail of reaction. Xanxus’s touch is burning, coating him with fire like he’s turning into the embodiment of his rage, is burning Squalo into an effigy for his own satisfaction. The idea aches want along Squalo’s cock, brings his hips tipping down to press himself against the floor, and Xanxus growls something almost like a laugh, if a laugh had no amusement in it at all, starts to thrust with haste rather than rhythm into Squalo. The stretch is too much, Squalo’s fingers are dragging against the floor and rubbing his fingertips raw, but he can’t fall into submission, he can’t suppress the taut arc of want curving along his spine. He just tenses, gasping raw sound on every exhale, until by the time Xanxus drags his fingers free he’s going lightheaded and shaky from the strain.

It’s a relief, for a moment, the ache of tension dissipating in time with the surge of want, desire for more vibrating through Squalo’s body until he’s left as incapacitated as he leaves his opponents. Xanxus is shoving his head to the floor, fingers twisting into a vicious hold at the back of Squalo’s neck, and there’s a weight over his thighs as the other leans in over him.

Xanxus’s thumb moves, strokes up against the bare side of Squalo’s neck to press against the chopped-off edge of his hairline. “Better,” he says again, lower than usual, almost a whisper, and then he’s thrusting into him before Squalo can form a guess as to what he’s talking about. His cock is bigger than his fingers, wider and hotter and harder all at once, and if it weren’t for that bracing hold Squalo would be curving up off the floor like a bow. As it is he just tenses, spits half-a-curse and half-a-moan against the cut hair under him, and Xanxus shoves in deeper and Squalo’s vision goes hazy. He’s still staring at the white in front of him but he’s not seeing it; his entire attention is captured and held by the drag of friction with Xanxus’s movements, the dig of fingernails against the back of his neck and the occasional shift of his cock against the floor. He’s speaking, or shouting, he’s not sure which, just that there’s noise in his throat and salt at his lips and his fingers are hot at the floor, his skin is flushed and his blood is burning and everything is fire, the friction and the air and the sound of Xanxus growling curses over him. All the water in his body is flashing into steam, he’s shaking and trembling and his throat is humming with sound he doesn’t hear, and then Xanxus thrusts in hard, enough that Squalo slides an inch over the floor, and he’s shouting and coming and everything is red. The satisfaction is more heat than pleasure, each wave wracking through him as if he’s a slave to it, and Xanxus is groaning and spilling into him and it doesn’t even feel hot, it’s just more of the blaze that has turned Squalo into a beacon.

Xanxus moves before Squalo is himself again. By the time the other can work his hand under his shoulders and push himself upright, the inside of his thighs are chill and sticky with the other’s absence and Xanxus is back in his chair, watching his ginger motions with the same steady stare he turned on Squalo when he arrived.

“Clean this up,” he says once Squalo is looking at him. The flick of in fingers encompasses everything -- the spill of come across the floor, the cut strands of hair, Squalo himself. “It’s a mess in here.”

Squalo growls, incoherent anger borrowed secondhand from the other, and Xanxus grins, the smile breaking into a razor-edged laugh with no invitation for Squalo to join in. But Squalo can taste salt on his skin, and his blood is still hot in his veins, and if the mockery infuriates him, well.

It is always Xanxus’s rage that has drowned him.


	2. Apology

It is hours later that Xanxus comes for him again.

Squalo has had the time to rinse himself clean, to splash water hot and burning against the sticky insides of his thighs, to wash the unfamiliar lightness of his hair three times until the ticklish ends of cut strands are clear of his skin. He’s even had the time to just stand in the water for a full half hour, head bowed and water beating down on him to wash the salt from his skin and eyes alike, the heat of the liquid sluicing down his back almost enough to compensate for the usual heavy weight of wet hair against his shoulders.

Eventually the water goes cold, and the ache in Squalo’s chest goes dull and manageable, and he shuts the tap off and goes to dry the damp off his skin. There’s another reminder when he runs the towel over his hair, his motions made awkward by the unfamiliar feel of strands brushing his shoulders instead of hanging heavy to his hips, and he has to wonder how long it will take before his every movement isn’t a constant reminder, until the destruction of his vow becomes ordinary instead of a weight of his heart.

There’s bruises coming too, Squalo knows, fingerprints forming against the back of his neck and a crest of impact marking out the line of his cheek. At least nothing is broken as far as he can tell; the bruises will heal along with the friction-torn tips of his fingers, will leave no outward sign of today anymore than Xanxus has left in the past. Far more lasting are the effects of the other’s knife, worse than the edge would have done to Squalo’s skin; Squalo can’t stop touching his hair, running his hand through the feather-light strands even once he has his pants back on and really should be finding a mirror and trying to smooth out the damage. He can feel a few longer strands, pieces Xanxus missed in his haphazard slices, and the entirety is rough-edged, uneven enough that he can tell just from touch how much of a mess it is.

He’s still standing in the middle of the room, head bowed and fingers trailing through the jagged line of his hair, when the door comes open without any warning. Squalo jerks in surprise, twists to look even though he knows who it is, who it must be; there’s no one else who would come into his room without making any attempt at getting his permission to enter.

Xanxus doesn’t offer any kind of greeting. He just steps inside, kicks the door shut behind him with so much force Squalo has a flicker of premonition, a moment of panic that maybe Xanxus isn’t done with him yet, that he’s gotten himself clean just in time to be marked all over again. But Xanxus’s scars are just his usual ones, absent the indications of rage that Squalo has learned to recognize, and when his eyes fix on Squalo there’s nothing but steady consideration in them.

“Sit down,” he orders, gesturing towards the chair in the corner of the room.

Squalo hesitates for a moment. He can feel his forehead creasing into uncertainty, the necessary question of why forming itself in his throat. But then his cheek throbs, reminds him of the likely result of asking questions, and it’s not like the answer will make a difference in his actions anyway. He sits. He can hear Xanxus’s steps coming across the room, the steady thump of boots at the floor approaching his back; instinct tells him to turn, to face and meet the danger coming up behind him, but obedience holds him still, leaves the prickle of vulnerability across his uncomfortably bare neck for Xanxus’s view.

Squalo jumps when Xanxus touches him. It’s not a jolt of pain that runs through him, nor anything approaching threat; Xanxus’s fingers are in fact gentle, skimming across the line of his shoulder and against his neck so carefully Squalo can’t help but shudder at the unfamiliar sensation. It feels wrong, to have the texture of those scarred fingers so light at his skin, like the careful contact is burning itself into more friction than a rougher hold would; Squalo can feel his skin flushing into warmth, almost-comfort following in the wake of Xanxus’s touch, until he has to bow his head to fight back the whimper in his throat.

“This is a mess,” Xanxus says, the words so absent of his usual aggression it’s hard for Squalo to even place his voice into the frame of recognition. The fingers drag back again, curl under one of the longer strands left over; when they tug it’s just sensation, pressure without enough force to tip it over into pain. There’s the sound of metal on metal, faint and telltale, and when the pressure gives way it’s in time with the slick sound of scissors closing.

“Tip your head farther forward,” Xanxus says, pushing at the top of Squalo’s head with something like his usual force. Squalo obeys, rocking forward in the chair and bowing his head like he’s making an offering of the back of his neck. There’s no pain, no shoving fingers or cutting edges tearing at his skin; just flickers of pressure, that same metallic snip, fingers working up through the raw edges of his shorn hair to smooth them into even lines again.

They don’t speak. Xanxus seems content to work in silence, only the sound of the scissors moving through hair to accompany what he’s doing, and Squalo doesn’t trust his throat to work smoothly, doesn’t even know what he’d say if he did. There’s too much on his tongue, hurt and gratitude and confusion all together, and he’s certain if he speaks Xanxus will go, and that, at least, he knows he doesn’t want. So he shuts his eyes, and closes his mouth, and for a few minutes there is just silence between them, silence and the steady drag of Xanxus’s fingers through his hair.

By the time Xanxus is done, Squalo can feel salt stinging across his cheeks again, clinging to the bruise over his cheekbone and collecting warm against his mouth. Xanxus doesn’t comment -- Squalo isn’t even sure he’s noticed -- just ruffles his hand through the weird lightness at Squalo’s scalp and hums a note of satisfaction far back in his throat.

“Better,” he says, low and rumbling into contentment. “Much better.” The hand pushes sideways, down to curl in against the side of Squalo’s neck, but there’s no force there either, just bracing warmth. There’s movement over his shoulder, the rustle of heavy fabric catching on itself, and when lips touch Squalo’s forehead he can’t catch back the gasp of shock in his throat. There’s no pain, for once, just the impact of rough affection as Xanxus’s hand holds him still, and all Squalo’s skin flares electric and hot.

“You look like my Squalo again,” Xanxus says, the words grating rough against Squalo’s skin, and it shouldn’t sound tender but it feels like a caress, sounds almost like an apology. Squalo lets his breath out, one huge shuddering rush, and when Xanxus’s mouth presses against the salted bruise on his cheekbone he doesn’t flinch from the ache.

It feels like starting over.


End file.
